CI INVESTMENTS: Making the Hosted Transition A CASE STUDY

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1 CI INVESTMENTS: Making the Hosted Transition A CASE STUDY

2 CONTENTS CI Investments 1 The Need for Change 2 A Hosted Alternative 2 Costs Based on Volume 2 Call Routing in the Clouds 3 Costs Considerations for CI 3 The Case for Telax 3

3 Company: CI Investments Industry: Financial Services Assets Under Management: Over $50,000,000,000 Client Base: Over 2,000,000 Monthly Call Volume: 75,000 on average Agents: 130 CI Investments CI Investments is a mutual fund subsidiary of CI Financial Corp., a Wealth Management company based in Toronto, Ontario, whose group of companies had approximately $80 billion in fee-earning assets as of December, CI Investments currently offers its clients one of the industry s most comprehensive portfolio of mutual fund products including over 90 core mutual fund products, a broad range of segregated funds covering all asset classes and investment styles, and managed asset programs. CI Investments also has other alternate investments including deposit notes, labor-sponsored funds, hedge funds, closed-end funds and limited partnerships. There are a number of channels through which CI Investments clients and advisors can manage their accounts, including , fax, internet, and phone. Phone and interactions are serviced by the Client Services department of CI Investments. The department can handle over 900,000 phone calls and 70,000 s per year. Because of increasing call volumes in the Client Services call center, CI Investments decided in 2000 to integrate their existing Nortel phone environment with a third-party premise-based Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) routing solution. Prior to 2000, the Nortel phone solution provided basic Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) queuing and reporting. The end result of the integration was a call center whose technology could be supported internally by one or two key support specialists. Although the company s CTI platform could be maintained internally, the solution lacked significant functionality as a result of limitations in the original architecture. Features such as complete redundancy, a fully integrated Interactive Voice Response (IVR), screen pops and cradle-to-grave reporting were noticeably absent from the Client Services call center. Over the years, CI Investments would often contemplate changes to their call center solution. But the cost of such changes inevitably seemed too high: even basic version upgrades to the company s CTI environment were very expensive, as they nearly always required the use of professional services. 1

4 The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better. Robert P. Vanderpoel The Need for Change By 2007, CI Investments CTI routing solution was using was in need of yet another costly software upgrade. Although the company had already invested in an integrated IVR Voice Portal to augment their CTI Call Routing environment, this upgrade cost provided the impetus to conduct an overall review of their current infrastructure. CI Investments was is need of a solution that could: Provide a more cost-effective way to maintain enhanced call control functionality Reduce the large overhead associated with maintaining a premise-based call routing solution Allow it to easily scale business, accommodating both planned and unplanned call volume Lower the cost of changes associated with the overall call routing solution A Hosted Alternative In 2008, CI Investments chose Telax Hosted Call Center to provide a hosted call routing solution that would replace the CTI call routing platform that had been in place since In doing so, the company effectively replaced the need for a complex web of applications spread across numerous services within their data-center. Telax was able to provide a single web-based call control application with corresponding web-based reporting access that met all of CI Investments needs. In a recent conversation Susan Tucker, the Director of Client Services, recounted how smooth the implementation of the Telax solution was compared to CI s previous premise-based solution. While we did still need to outline our business structure and requirements to Telax, as we expected, the relative ease by which Telax was able to implement their solution for our business seemed much simpler and easier to use then what we had in place previously. Costs Based on Volume Unlike premise-based solutions, which require businesses to provision their solution based on highest projected call volume, hosted solutions are flexible. Telax Hosted Call Center provides CI Investments with the flexibility to lower costs during off-peak times. For example, CI Investments call volume is often 80% higher during the months of January and February than it is during off-peak months. Similarly, monthly call volumes can fluctuate by as much as 10% to 15% year over year. Historically, CI Investments has paid for excess capacity, excess licensing and excess support in all but their busiest months. With a hosted solution, CI Investments didn t need to worry about paying year-round for licenses and capacity just to cover their busiest seasons. Susan Tucker points out that Now we [CI Investments] only need to be concerned about ensuring we can staff appropriately for these peak seasons, rather than about making sure we have enough, or too many, licenses. 2

5 Costs Considerations for CI CI Investments considered a number of cost elements before determining if they should continue with their premise-based routing solution or instead opt for a hosted solution. In assessing the overall cost structure of both models it was determined that a premise-based routing solution could only be cost effective in the long term, and only if the following conditions were met: The underlying technology did not need to change or evolve in any significant way during the lifecycle of the technology Additional hardware and/or software changes were not re quired during the lifecycle of the technology Professional services would not be required every few years to assist with upgrades The support team required within IT did not need to expand to facilitate acceptable support levels The business requirements would not change significantly during the typical lifecycle of the technology Call Routing in the Clouds The Telax Hosted Call Center solution introduced some important functionality into CI Investments Client Services call center, namely disaster recovery. Previously, CI Investments had struggled with how to finance business continuity in the context of local emergencies and CTI system issues. Because they are based in the cloud, Telax Hosted Call Center allows for business continuity protection that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. The Case for Telax When considering all cost, business and technology issues, CI Investments determined that the Telax solution would: Significantly lower (or eliminate) the need for any upfront hardware and software costs Provide the company with a very cost-effective and flexible environment Offer the possibility of cost-effective customizations as business needs evolve Relieve stress about how clients calls are being routed Easily route calls to external locations should the business require Provide a cost-per-agent model, eliminating the need for a wasteful solution during off-peak months 3

6 CONTACT US For more information on what hosted solutions can do for your business! Telax Hosted Call Center Phone: TELAX info@telax.com 4